Latino voters are gaining clout in Rhode Island elections

Saturday

Nov 23, 2013 at 9:23 PM

Gubernatorial candidate and Providence Mayor Angel Taveras spoke on three different Latino radio stations last week.

By Alisha A. Pina

Gubernatorial candidate and Providence Mayor Angel Taveras spoke on three different Latino radio stations last week. Earlier this month, he went to a Bolivian art festival reception, gave the keynote address at a Latino politics conference and attended two other Latino functions.

Providence mayoral candidates Michael Solomon, Jorge Elorza and other 2014 local and statewide candidates chatted it up at the cocktail hour of the NAACP Providence’s 100th Anniversary Freedom Fund Dinner on Nov. 1, but couldn’t stay to hear the legendary keynote speaker, U.S. Rep. John Lewis, of Georgia. They left to attend the 36th annual Progreso Latino gala.

And nearly every 15-minute slot at Latino Public Radio’s late-summer political barbecue was filled by candidates running for Rhode Island offices, further proof that Latino voters are already being courted.

“We are a force,” says Doris De Los Santos, past president of Rhode Island Latino Political Action Committee and the Rhode Island Latino Civic Fund. “We are no longer a subset in some communities. We are the substance.… We will be giving them the edge they need to win.”

By 2043, minorities are projected to be the majority in the United States.

They are the fastest-growing group in Rhode Island in recent decades — growing 43.9 percent between 2000 and 2010, and 50 percent the decade before. Latino leaders say their growth in the last decade — the non-Hispanic white population declined — led to Rhode Island keeping its two congressional seats.

U.S. Census data from the 2012 American Community Survey says there are 138,550 Latinos in Rhode Island — and they represent 13.2 percent of the state’s total population. In 1990, they made up 4.5 percent of the state’s population.

They now are the majority in Central Falls, and nearly 40 percent of Providence’s residents.

Providence College political science professor Tony Affigne, who is also a visiting Brown University professor, says Secretary of State A. Ralph Mollis won by 1.2 percent of the vote in 2010 because he received overwhelming support from Latino and other minorities on Providence’s South Side.

He, De Los Santos, and Latino Public Radio board president and talk-show host Pablo Rodriguez say the Latino electorate provided “decisive support” that put Governor Chafee, Taveras and U.S. Rep. David Cicilline in office as well.

They say the political influence of Latinos was not an anomaly in 2010.

The 58,788 voting-age Latino citizens, they say, will affect the following 2014 races: the Democratic primary for governor, congressional seats, Providence mayor and most other local races in the capital city, Pawtucket and Central Falls.

“To get the Latino vote in any race you have to be there,” Rodriguez says. “The governor of New Jersey is a good example. Chris Christie developed relationships in the community; he was seen working hand in hand in the community and received over 50 percent of the Latino vote.”

He continued, “You can’t come in last minute with hiring a couple of helpers. You have to show you care on a consistent basis. People can read through the fakes.”

Besides being engaged, and schmoozing in non-election years, Rodriguez, De Los Santos and Affigne say knowing issues important to Latinos, having a plan to address those issues and having a grasp on the myths and facts of the Latino population are necessary.

Latino migration to New England began in the 1950s with Puerto Ricans. Colombians soon joined them, and in the 1980s, Affigne says increasing numbers of people from the Dominican Republic, Mexico and Guatemala arrived.

A myth, Affigne says as an example, is that the majority of the state’s current Latinos are immigrants. He said about 60 percent are citizens born in the United States and half of the remaining Latino residents, says Affigne, are naturalized citizens.

Leading issues facing Latinos are the same as everyone else — jobs and education.

More specifically, they include: a higher minimum wage; equal pay for women; a better education overall; solutions to close the achievement gap for Latinos and English-language learners; a stop to anti-Latino legislation and discrimination; the treatment of immigrants; improved housing conditions; curbing foreclosures; and solutions for environmental issues.

“You have to get Latinos’ attention first,” says Affigne, a past vice-president of the state Latino PAC and the first Latino to run for elected office in Rhode Island. He is Puerto Rican. “Whether they get the vote depends on what they say,” he said of political aspirants.

Latino Public Radio, Progreso Latino, the PAC and other organizations will play a role as well. The 8-year-old Spanish-language radio station, says Rodiguez, one of its co-founders, may have as many as 75,000 listeners and is the only public one of its kind locally.

“Every candidate and person has complete free range to come on the air,” he says. “Our goal is to create an engaged and informed electorate.”

The PAC was formed in 1998 to “create an organized way to talk with candidates,” says Rodriguez, its first president. Its current process to endorse state and local candidates is extensive — including a questionnaire, interviews before a committee and then vetting by its membership.

While the committee is “very much about electing Latinos,” De Los Santos says it isn’t a guarantee that Taveras, mayoral candidate Elorza and other Latinos vying for office will get the PAC’s endorsement.

There are five minority members in the House (three are Latino), and two in the Senate (one is Latino). If the elected General Assembly members reflected the minority population, which represents nearly a fourth of the population, Affigne said the number of minority House and Senate members would be 18 and 9, respectively.

“We are way underrepresented,” De Los Santos says, “but at the same time, it is not about what you look like and the language you speak. It’s about what you represent, your history, where you stand on the issues and your trajectory.”

Put another way, Rodriguez simply said genetics does not make the politics.

Twitter: @AlishaPina

Never miss a story

Choose the plan that's right for you.
Digital access or digital and print delivery.